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Topic: Gotta Vent about CaraPils (Read 8243 times)

wow, so I feel a bit complicit (or indicted ) in this thread, as it may have been my post in another thread on this board that got Dave so revved up...

I brewed my IPA last night with carapils and wheat as I've done for years. If my grain had not been milled and. Mixed I would have left it out. Oh well, I guess i need to brew another. Then, a head to head (I hope, but unsure without the carapils!) tasting.

Good discussion, lots of information that would otherwise require hours of book reading.

wow, so I feel a bit complicit (or indicted ) in this thread, as it may have been my post in another thread on this board that got Dave so revved up...

I brewed my IPA last night with carapils and wheat as I've done for years. If my grain had not been milled and. Mixed I would have left it out. Oh well, I guess i need to brew another. Then, a head to head (I hope, but unsure without the carapils!) tasting.

Good discussion, lots of information that would otherwise require hours of book reading.

cheers!

Not you dude! Like I said, it was building for a while.

Let us know if you see a difference once you brew without. It's a good exercise.

Without delving into the mechanisms I can say that, in my own experience, adding a little wheat to a recipe is a good way to ensure good head retention. It often gives a bit more of a rocky head too, which I like. Would it happen without wheat? Probably but theres no real downside either unless you're out of wheat and don't brew anyway.

+1 regarding wheat malt or flaked wheat for building head. Very effective. I also tried flaked barley for about a half dozen brews. Flaked barley delivers about 10 times the beta-glucan as wheat and the head was huge! But I felt the flavor was downgraded in pale beers, even with teeny additions, so I switched to wheat. Wheat is more neutral tasting to me.

I suspect that many homebrewers (maybe not AHA members) chase after that magic cure. Lack of head/lacing/body is NOT from a lack of Carapils. It could easily be some other problems causing no body. That or beer had no head or body or lacing until carapils was invented. In my opinion carapils lets us brew really thin beers with the body of bigger beers. Point being, if you brew a big bad IPA but it needs carapils to have any body or foam? Sumpins wrong

so Briess and Weyermann, etc. are producing, literally, tons of Carapils/Carafoam for the few thousand or so homebrewers out there that think they need it for head retention?

As Denny said, its a tool in the tool box. It does have a flavor and I do like to use it when I want to add some body/dextrines to a beer without darkening it too much or adding too much crystal flavor - such as in my Dortmunder and a handful of other styles. Using C-15L here is a bit much. I sort of view it is as super light crystal. I've tinkered with using it in IIPA before but have gone away from that in recent batches.